president obama announced today that marine general john allen will end his military career. allen's nomination for the nato post was put on hold last fall, amid questions about e-mail exchanges with a woman in florida. the general was cleared of all wrongdoing, but he said today he needs to focus on his wife's health problems. the president stepped up his attack on republicans today in the face of a looming deficit deadline. the so-called "sequester," $85 billion in automatic spending cuts, is set to take effect less than two weeks from now, on march 1. the president charged republicans' unwillingness to raise taxes is preventing a deal, and, he said, hundreds of thousands of public employees could be out of work, if the sequester takes place. >> this is not an expression: people will lose their jobs. the unemployment rate might tick up again. that's why democrats, business leaders and economists, they've already said that these cuts-- known here in washington as sequestration-- are a bad idea. they're not good for our economy they're not how we should run our government. >>